


Signature Characters

by BurrSquee, Tikor



Series: Castebook: Casteless [8]
Category: Exalted
Genre: Gen, Lunars, Roleplaying Character, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-23 07:11:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14327271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurrSquee/pseuds/BurrSquee, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tikor/pseuds/Tikor
Summary: Summaries, images, and mechanics for four Casteless.





	1. Signature Characters: Casteless

The Casteless span the spectrum from innocent to monstrous. They unite the Wyld Hunt and the Lunars of the Silver Pact against them when they wreck havoc. They are tracked by the Astrology of Sidereals and the intuition of No Moon Savants. In short, they’re going to either get into a fight for their lives, need to talk their way out of one, or use every scrap of intelligence they have to evade their pursuers. In this chapter, you may reference their full character sheets to see if these dramatic actions succeed. 

This chapter can be used by storytellers to introduce a complication to their chronicle, for Casteless Lunars always come with strings even if they are unaware of them. The quote, prelude, and roleplaying tips can be used to faithfully and colorfully portray the Casteless experience. 

The Charms listed in each of these writeups are meant to be used by the Storyteller quickly during play, so they are simplified and personalized versions, noticeably missing several aspects of a normal Charm writeup. They should not be treated as canon Charms. Where possible the character’s statistics are substituted for any variable values, so do not take their text generally. In some cases frequently used Charm combinations are combined into a single effect. If a player chooses a signature character to play, we suggest that when they get a feel for the Exalted mechanics and the character they have chosen both, that they ignore the Charms section of their signature character and select their own collection of Charms following the character creation and advancement rules in Exalted Third Edition and 3e Lunars.


	2. Faithful Pia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Faithful Pia's full character sheet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Faithful Pia in black and white by the gifted kagurachi7! We used  
> [artistsnclients.com](https://artistsnclients.com/people/kagurachi7) to get in touch for the commission.

Quote: _Jak! I’m so happy to see you again! Did you miss me?!_

 **Prelude:**  
You were once just a child in a caravan, walking the southern trade roads because that was what you knew, what your mother had taught you. That ended in a disastrous raid that left you wounded and stranded without supplies. Most little girls in your situation would have waited until the desert claimed them, but you boldly set off on the road, leaving it all behind.

After a few days of deprivation, you Exalted as a Lunar Exalted. A Solar by the name of Jak found you, gave you water, and returned you to his home at Kether Rock. There, you’ve been inducted into the Cult of the Illuminated. 

You love Jak in your girlish way for saving your life, but you shy away from the gravity of his actions, usually hiding it behind a flippance that comes easily to you. 

**Roleplaying Hints:**  
You are a ray of sunshine in the figurative sense to the people of Kether Rock. While they worship the actual sunlight-radiating Illuminated Ones from a distance, you walk among both the godly figures and those who worship them, ask about their days and their troubles, and brighten their faces with a joke or your reaction to a novel situation. 

Jak is a constant target for your affection, and you do everything you can to please him. While he has not returned your affections, at least not romantically, he tolerates your presence and listens to everything you say, no matter how inane. 

You’re currently frustrated that you’ve been ordered to stay on the grounds of Kether Rock. A recent incident with a Lunar of the Silver Pact has brought your situation some attention from the political movers of Kether Rock. All you know is that it’s no fun being cooped up. 

**Image:**  
Pia is a small girl of mixed heritage. She has tan skin with darker freckles across her nose, cheekbones, and shoulders, light brown hair, and a short, petite frame not clearing five feet. Her ears are large, pointed, and expressive, though due to the magic of the Lunar tell, most don’t notice. A smile brightens her face when she sees Jak, or Michael, or Father Persimmon, or just about anyone at Kether Rock that she knows, with the exception of Makuda Shin. Pia walks with a mixture of pep and parkour, happily dancing around to a tune only she hears. 

**Mechanics:**  
Caste: Casteless  
Concept: The lost Lunar taken in by the Cult of the Illuminated  
Anima: Pawprints appear in the air, leaving ethereal traces in sets of four around you.  
Tell and Totem: Triangular, large and catlike ears; Desert Cat  
Supernal Attribute: None

 **Attributes:**  
Physical (Tertiary)  
Strength: •/1  
Dexterity: ••••/4  
Stamina: ••••/4

Social (Primary)  
Charisma •••••/5 *Favored  
Manipulation ••/2  
Appearance •••••/5

Mental (Secondary)  
Perception •••••/5 *Favored  
Intelligence •••/3  
Wits •••/3

 **Abilities-Foci (Specialties):**  
Archery •/1  
Athletics •••/3 (On sandy footing)  
Awareness •••••/5 *Favored  
Brawl /0  
Bureaucracy ••/2 (Haggling)  
Craft-Food •/1  
Dodge ••••/4  
Integrity ••/2 (My feelings for Jak)  
Investigation •••/3 (While a cat)  
Larceny •••/3  
Linguistics ••/2  
Lore ••/2  
Medicine /0  
Melee ••/2  
Occult •/1 (Cult of the Illuminated)  
Performance •••/3 (Parkour)  
Presence ••••/4  
Resistance ••••/4  
Ride ••/2  
Sail /0  
Socialize ••••/4  
Stealth •••/3  
Survival •/1 *Favored  
Thrown /0  
War /0

 **Merits:**  
Past Lives •••/3 (Jungle Queen)  
Backing ••/2 (Cult of the Illuminated)  
Reputation •/1 (Our sweet Lunar)  
Languages •/1 (Native: Flametongue, learned Riverspeak)  
Languages •/1 (Learned Low Realm)  
Languages •/1 (Learned Sea-tongue)  
Heart’s Blood /0 (Pia does not know any forms besides her true forms)

 **Flaws:**  
Favor (Defining) (You feel like you owe your life to Jak)  
Solar Bond (Minor) (Michael)  
Childlike Heft (Minor) (You have a difficult time lifting what a grown person would easily shoulder. Reduce your Strength+Athletics pool by 2 for feats of strength and eliminate your bonus from Strength to Withering attacks)

 **Essence and Willpower:**  
Essence •/1  
Personal 16  
Peripheral 38  
Committed 0

Willpower: •••••/5  
Permanent Limit: 0 (Pia has never stepped foot in the Wyld)  
Limit Trigger: Being left behind or fearing abandonment. Common Limit Break: Instinctual Hunt. When Pia reaches her Limit Break, she often has an episode of which she has no memory. The instincts for the hunt inside her take over. She assumes her most dangerous shape, which is her Deadly Beastman Transformation, and wanders off to kill something large and eat it. This prey is often at least human size.

 **Other notes:**  
Pia instinctually knows how to perform the sacred hunt, but she hasn’t acted on it because she thinks it wouldn’t go over well with the priests of Kether Rock if anybody found her eating a raw animal heart. Consequently, the only shapes she knows are her true human form, her spirit shape of a desert cat, and her Deadly Beastman Transformation. Around Kether Rock it is no secret that she is a Lunar, but her reputation is one of helpful sweetness rather than a dangerous Anathema that knowledge would produce most elsewhere. The people there love her in a familial way, and many, even among the Solars, foremostly Jak and Michael, would defend her from harm, though she is unaware of this influence. Pia’s love for Jak is entirely natural and mundane in nature, unreinforced by the Solar Bond, but perhaps helped along a little by the Cult of the Illuminated. Fate did arrange for her to arrive at Kether Rock to meet her bonded Solar, Michael, but it did not account for how much she would idolize her rescuer. The sculptor of her Exaltation left more memories than usual to Pia’s subconscious - she often dreams of her previous incarnation who led a rough and tribal life far from the civilization she has known all her life. 

**Weapons:**  
Fists, Feet, and Teeth, Human Forms (Brawl, Withering) - 8 dice (No Dexterity Excellency), 7 damage dice before strike successes, Overwhelming 1, Tags: Bashing, Brawl, Grappling, Natural  
Fists, Feet, and Fangs, Human Forms (Brawl, Decisive) - 4 dice (No Dexterity Excellency)  
Dagger (Melee, Withering) - 10 dice (No Dexterity Excellency), 7 damage dice before strike successes, Overwhelming 1, Tags: Lethal, Melee, Piercing  
Dagger (Melee, Decisive) - 6 dice (No Dexterity Excellency)

 **Warform Weapons:**  
Fists, Feet, and Fangs, Warform (Brawl, Withering) - 8 dice (No Dexterity Excellency), 8 damage dice before strike successes, Overwhelming 1, Tags: Bashing, Brawl, Grappling, Natural  
Fists, Feet, and Fangs, Warform (Brawl, Decisive) - 4 dice (No Dexterity Excellency)  
Dagger (Melee, Withering) - 10 dice (No Dexterity Excellency), 8 damage dice before strike successes, Overwhelming 1, Tags: Lethal, Melee, Piercing  
Dagger (Melee, Decisive) - 6 dice (No Dexterity Excellency)

 **Intimacies:**  
Jak (Defining Tie, Love for my heroic rescuer)  
The Cult of the Illuminated tells the truth about the Illuminated ones (Major Principle)  
But they’re awfully stuffy about it (Major Principle)  
People just want to be recognized, and I can help with that (Major Principle)  
Michael (Minor Tie, friendship)  
Fish are delicious (Minor Principle)

 **Charms:**  
Rapid Speech Technique, 5m, Simple, Psyche, Instant: Pia’s openness and friendliness, combined with a dozen questions, can get to what someone’s really looking for in short order if her target isn’t guarded. When Pia approaches someone for a Read Intentions action she asks so many questions so fast that the target has a hard time keeping composure. Effectively, Pia may make two separate Read Intentions actions with this Charm with Charisma+Socialize (usually 9 dice with the option of +5 from the Charisma Excellency unstunted), the first one rolls against her target’s Guile as normal but the second one rolls against the target’s Guile-1 as if suffering from an onslaught penalty. If either of these Read Intentions actions fail then, like a normal read intentions action failure, further read intentions actions in the scene (even those produced by this Charm) cannot be attempted normally.

Foe-Turning Rebuke, 4m, Simple, Psyche, Instant: Against a Creature of Darkness, Pia may activate this Charm with a gesture of banishment. Roll Pia’s Charisma+Presence (usually 9 dice with the option of +5 from the Charisma Excellency unstunted) against one or several creatures of darkness' Resolve with penalties for multiple targets as normal (usually -3, 3e Core page 221). Success means a rebuked creature of darkness must spend either 3 Willpower or spend its next 2 actions as either Disengage or Withdraw actions, without the opportunity for a flurry. In social combat, success typically means that creature of darkness leaves the scene immediately. When Pia saw a demon that was summoned for a demonstration of the Illuminated One’s power of demonkind, she yelped and thrust her hands out, causing it to flee, ruining the demonstration and upstaging the visiting Solar who was meant to banish it, Amaya.

Senses of the Heart and Spirit, 3m or 6m, 1wp, Simple, Knack, Scene: Pia may access the sensory acuity of her desert cat shape without shapeshifting and enhance them even further with Lunar might. She gains double 8’s on Perception rolls for hearing, scent, or seeing in the dark, and rerolls 1’s. She can tell from the rustle of grasses not only that a creature moves there, but that it is a mouse who has injured its front-left paw. She can smell which rider was on a horse last from his saddle if she’s smelled that person’s scent before. She can see an entire scene through a keyhole without any apparent difficulty, quickly moving her head to catch all the action in the next room. Pia may instead pay 6m and 1wp to extend this Charm to Indefinite, which she typically does. 

Excellencies: Pia knows the Charisma and Perception Lunar Excellencies, but she tends to keep her Essence expenditure light to not flare her Castemark. After she was scolded for disrupting prayer trying to spot Jak past the Illuminated priest Persimmon, that is. When talking to just about anyone, she’ll lightly use the Charisma Excellency to inspire them to feel the joy of living. 

Deadly Beastman Transformation, 5m, 1wp, Simple, Knack, Indefinite: When someone threatens Jak around Pia, or if her patience is at an end with some frustration, Pia changes her form into a cat-woman to reflect that she means business. Gone is the cute woman-child known and loved around Kether Rock. In her place is a six foot tall, deadly, graceful, killing predator that walks on two digitigrade legs, sports elongated, sharp claws and fangs, and looks like she could use them to lethal effect. She gains the Keen Nose (double 9’s on smell-based perception rolls) and Fleet of Foot (3e Core pg. 161) Merits and loses her Childlike Heft Flaw. While in this form, disguise suffers a -5 penalty from the face/fur/ears of a desert cat, complete with fur stripes on her face, but the stealthy nature of her hybrid spirit animal means she suffers no stealth penalties.

 **Inventory:**  
Three waterskins (One for you and two for Jak)  
A long dagger that feels like a shortsword to you  
Well-mended and clean but simple clothing in the form of a short-sleeve hemp shirt, a knee-length hemp skirt, leather gloves, leather boots, leather elbowpads and leather kneepads

 **Health and Defense:**  
Health Levels: -0/-1x2/-2x2/-4x1/Incap.

Soak 4 (4 natural soak, 5 when the moon is full), Hardness 0  
Parry: 3  
Evasion: 4  
Rush: 7 dice (8 on sand)  
Resolve: 3  
Guile: 3  
Disengage: 8 dice (7 for contesting, 8 for contesting on sand)


	3. Madame Vert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Madame Vert's full character sheet.

Quote: _I will never bow in earnest again._

 **Prelude:**  
You came of age in the capital of Coral, the city of Azure, to a wealthy merchant family. There you were educated commensurate with your family’s wealth, and married a thaumaturge you met at her work in the library. He was a fool, and after completely relying on her to get ahead, got himself killed in a foolish attempt to summon a demon. In that moment, your years of diligent study favored you, as did Luna. With both gifts, you retrieved the means to slay the teodozjia, a demon-scorching spear, living up to everything your husband’s father wrote of it. Now you walk the widow’s path in public, but that is no longer your true face. 

**Roleplaying Hints:**  
Madame Vert will misinterpret suggestions, hints, and legitimate orders as an affront to her autonomy. In short, she does not like to be told what to do. She had a mortal lifetime of that, and will tolerate it no further in her Exalted one. But, should you approach her as an equal, she will prove inquisitive, diligent, and extremely intelligent.

 **Image:**  
Madame Vert is only half-Westerner. Her mother is from the West, but her father hails from the South, and it shows in her skin and features. She has a dark, chocolate-cream skin, with a mix of muted red and blue hair, straight and worn down to her chest, with large lips and a flat, wide nose. She wears what a moderately rich woman is expected to wear in Coral: light, flowing dresses in summer, fur coats and scarves in winter, all varied and colorful. She has a habit of carrying her demon-scorching spear with her ‘as a conversation piece’. In truth, she carries it because she knows that now supernatural forces have an interest in her, and she feels safer with its small weight on her belt. 

**Mechanics:**  
Caste: Casteless  
Concept: The freed widow  
Anima: Anima  
Tell and Totem: Scales near her eyes, two raised and clawed big toes; Treestrider  
Supernal Attribute: None

 **Attributes:**  
Physical (Tertiary)  
Strength: ••/2  
Dexterity: •••/3  
Stamina: •••/3 

Social (Secondary)  
Charisma ••/2  
Manipulation •••/3  
Appearance ••••/4 *Favored

Mental (PrimaryT)  
Perception •••/3  
Intelligence •••••/5 *Favored  
Wits •••/3 

**Abilities-Foci (Specialties):**  
Archery 0  
Athletics 1 (While in DBT)  
Awareness 2  
Brawl 0  
Bureaucracy 4  
Craft-Food 2 (Medicine)  
Dodge 0  
Integrity 3  
Investigation 3 (Libraries)  
Larceny 0  
Linguistics 4  
Lore 3  
Medicine 5 (Thaumaturgically aided) *Favored  
Melee 1 (Fighting for my life)  
Occult 3 (Thaumaturgy)  
Performance 1  
Presence 1 (Bedside manner)  
Resistance 2  
Ride 0  
Sail 0  
Socialize 1  
Stealth 0  
Survival 1 *Favored  
Thrown 0  
War 0

 **Merits:**  
Thaumaturgist 4 (Gained free from Terrestrial Circle Sorcery)  
Resources 2  
Backing 2 (The Salinian Society of Azure)  
Reputation 2 (The Casteless that Light Sinks Deep resents)  
Thaumaturgic Ritual 2 (Heroes’ Spike)  
Thaumaturgic Ritual 1 (Unquenchable Flame, Exalted 3e page 491)  
Thaumaturgic Ritual 1 (Purifying Touch)  
Reputation 1 (Medicine woman of Azure)  
Heart’s Blood 1 (A manta ray and an albatross)

 **Flaws:**  
Rival (Minor) (Light Sinks Deep)

 **Essence and Willpower:**  
Essence 2  
Personal 17  
Peripheral 42 (42)  
Committed (0)

Willpower: 9  
Permanent Limit: 4  
Limit Trigger: Being expected or forced to genuflect, grovel, or otherwise bend to one of higher rank, socially, academically, or domestically. Common Limit Break: Rampaging Avarice (3e Core page 137).

 **Other notes:**  
Madame Vert’s Resources come from a combination of her work in the library, her medical services, and selling her clandestine thaumaturgical products. While she does not realize it, the Salinian Society of Azure considers her a useful resource worth protecting - before now they did not appreciate what a bolster to membership and collaboration having an open lab gives them. So long as she lets members continue to use her late husband’s lab, she’ll have those thaumaturges as friends. Heroes’ Spike allows Madame Vert to make any liquid have the ability to grant the Exalted Healing Merit to the imbiber for a day, with the side effect of being potently alcoholic. She must take the liquid and fill her mouth with it, then spit it back out again to grant this property. Multiple doses can be made via multiple mouthfuls, through drinking more than one before the duration is complete merely adds to the duration (of both the healing power and inebriation), it does not compound the effects. Purifying Touch is a thaumaturgic ritual that allows Madame Vert to separate a mixture, solution, or emulsion simply by making contact with the majority of the substance. Sometimes this mimics distillation as the unwanted quantities boil off, leaving a pure, desired compound behind. Other times, when all the components are desired, she may pour the liquid over her hand with two beakers below - each drop finds its way to the proper glass. Madame Vert has had little success using Purifying Touch on poisoned humans, what with the impediment of most of their blood being in their body, but she’s searching for a way around that limitation. 

**Weapons:**  
Fists, Feet, and Fangs, Human Forms (Brawl, Withering) - 7 dice (No relevant Excellency), 9 damage dice before strike successes, Overwhelming 1, Tags: Bashing, Brawl, Grappling, Natural  
Fists, Feet, and Fangs, Human Forms (Brawl, Decisive) - 3 dice (No relevant Excellency)  
Demon-Scorching Spear (Melee, Withering) - 7 dice (8 when fighting for her life, no relevant Excellency), 11 damage dice before strike successes, Overwhelming 1, Tags: Lethal, Melee, Piercing, Reaching, aggravated to demons  
Demon-Scorching Spear (Melee, Decisive) - 5 dice (6 when fighting for her life, no relevant Excellency)

 **Intimacies:**  
I will chart my own path (Defining Principle)  
Being defined by what I lack (Major Principle, disgust)  
The Salinian Society of Azure (Major Tie, belonging)  
Thaumaturgy is a worthwhile field of study (Minor Principal)  
Lanticul (Minor Tie, gratitude)

 **Charms and Spells:**  
Flood of Pages Prana, 6m, 1wp, Reflexive, Instant: A scholar’s work is the work of days and weeks, sometimes years. With this Charm, Madame Vert can quicken that work to an instant. Any non-shape sorcery roll that requires Intelligence and is performed primarily in the mind that would normally take some non-instantaneous time can be enhanced by this Charm to be instant. She could compose a mental summary of a library’s contents that she has read without referencing any notes or books, but she could not summarize unread tomes as this Charm cannot physically move all the pages of a library’s worth of unread books in front of her eyes. She could, given the information about allied and enemy forces, craft a stratagem for strategic warfare faster than it takes to communicate it to the troops. For early rolls of crafting projects where the design may be rolled by Intelligence she does not need work for the period normally required for a craftsman to mentally wrestle through the details of design, though for later, manual implementation of those designs using a different Attribute she would still need to put in normal time and labor. 

Terrestrial Circle Sorcery: Madame Vert knows relatively few spells, including Coin of Distant Vision (White and Black Treatise page 40), Dragon and Smoke Flame (White and Black Treatise page 43-44), Burning Eyes of the Offender (White and Black Treatise page 39, adapted for 3e below) and Demon of the First Circle (Exalted 3e page 473). Given the inclination, Madame Vert could perform the moonsilver tattooing sorcerous working as Beyond the Boundaries on herself (Exalted 3e page 488), which may be the only way she allows it. She initiated into sorcery by listening to the scripture of the teodozjia after their mysterious appearances in her bedchamber. Her sacrifice was her humility. Since becoming a sorcerer, Madame Vert may only downplay her own strengths or knowledge or virtue as an insincere act, taken only under cover of deception, and then only by necessity.

Burning Eyes of the Offender, 10m, Sorcery, Scene - Madame Vert’s Anima explodes in a light-burst of silver with blue undertones. Any who observe the phenomenon (ally or enemy) by failing a Wits+Occult roll at a difficulty of 5 within long range are plagued with afterimages, distorting their vision. They suffer a -2 situational penalty to all sight-based actions, such as movement, attack, and defense for the rest of the scene. Madame Vert remains so illuminated indefinitely, and she may snuff out this sorcerous light reflexively. Doing so only prevents new onlookers from being blinded, providing no aid to those already affected. 

Bashed flat, 4m, 4i, 1lhl, Reflexive, Instant, Knack, Perilous, Obvious - When taking Bashing damage, Madame Vert may simply flatten herself, avoiding most of the ill effects of being smacked about by blunt objects. After being successfully struck by a decisive attack that would deal bashing damage she may spend 4 motes, 4 initiative and 1 lethal health level to sacrifice all of their Hardness for that instant to take no damage from the blow, but still reduce the Initiative pool of their attacker back to base initiative. This is an optional effect; Madame Vert has refrained from using the skin-twisting magic when she’s been hit by a cart in the market of Azure. What is not optional is falling damage - when Madame Vert takes any amount of falling damage she halves round down the levels and dice of damage they take. So far, no Lunar of the Silver Pact has tested Madame Vert for Chimerism by throwing her off a cliff to see how well she keeps her shape at the bottom, but now that she knows this Charm the risk is always there.

Deadly Beastman Transformation, 5m, 1wp, Simple, Indefinite - Madame Vert considers her mix of treestrider and human to be her true form. In this form - lithe, muscular, and dangerous - she lets herself loose; she indulges in the power of Luna. As a half-woman, half-tree-climbing-dinosaur, Madame Vert gains +2 to her Strength for feats of strength, both for the dice pool and for determining what feats she may attempt. She gains +1 to her Athletics pool for climbing purposes, and gains the Fleet of Foot (3e Core pg. 161) Merit. While in this form disguise actions suffer a -5 penalty, but stealth gains a +2 bonus from her stealth-hunting spirit shape, as she is six and a half feet tall, has digitigrade legs, her hair transforms into reptilian appendages, and her face/snout is that of a treestrider. 

Madame Vert knows the Intelligence Lunar Excellency, usually maxing it out when shaping sorcery, the Perception Lunar Excellency, which she uses to find her materials, and the Appearance Lunar Excellency which she uses in her Deadly Beastman Form to seduce whoever catches her fancy. 

**Inventory:**  
Varied clothing suitable for a woman of the professional class in Azure  
Demon-Scorching Spear  
A few cowrie shells and some dinars

 **Health and Defense:**  
Health Levels: -0/-1x2/-2x2/-4x1/Incap.

Soak 3 (3 natural soak, 4 when the moon is full), Hardness 0  
Parry: 3  
Evasion: 2  
Rush: 4 dice (7 in DBT)  
Resolve: 3  
Guile: 2  
Disengage: 3 dice (4 for contesting, 7 for contesting when in DBT)


	4. Echinna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Echinna's full character sheet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Echinna depicted by the black and white master sweaper! We used  
> [the artistsnclients](https://artistsnclients.com/people/sweaper) to get in touch for the commission.

Quote: _Run! Run while I can still speak!_

 **Prelude:**  
You were a carefree youth touched by Luna in Thorns long before the Deathlord Mask of Winters conquered it. You were visited by the Silver Pact but spurned their offer of escort to safer territory, out of the Realm tributary. Your wanted to run your own path. Not long after, the Wyld Hunt came for you, and you had no pack to turn to. The shikari leading the hunt tried a new method of persecuting the Anathema - containment instead of death. You’ve suffered confinement since that fateful hunt. Now, you’ve begun to wear down the walls of your cage, untended due to Thorn’s new rulers displacing the old. But, after centuries trapped in a Wyld zone with no moonsilver tattoos to protect you, you are well on your way to Chimerism.

 **Roleplaying Hints:**  
Echinna has two personalities, herself and The Beast. Echinna has been transformed through her long imprisonment into a thoughtful, philosophical thinker. The Beast has little thought, or, if it does, Echinna does not remember it. She only sees the results of its feral destruction. She has come to fear her transformations, and if she cares anything for those she interacts with, she will warn them of the danger within her. 

**Image:**  
Echinna is a tall, lanky woman visibly in her middle years. Her hair is straight and black, though unkept and unclean as she has only what the Wyld inconsistently provides to care for her appearance. Her skin is the tan of an Easterner, easily meshed with the bark of a tree. Her clothes are a jumble of scavenged material, crudely held together and draped on her thin frame. Cloth from a common workman’s shirt is tied by sticky silk from Wyld silkworms and clasped with a gossamer pin resembling clear green glass. Echina’s lips are bone-white, contrasting with her skin, as they are actual bones, segmented for movement.

 **Mechanics:**  
Caste: Casteless  
Concept: Caged Bird losing her mind to the Beast  
Anima: Echinna's Anima is a translucent moonlight sphere around her, a to-scale miniaturization of the cage that binds her. When The Beast has her, cracks appear.  
Tell and Totem: Supple bone lips instead of skin (natural), quick, avian movements (Wary Swallow Method) ; Austrech  
Supernal Attribute: None

 **Attributes:**  
Physical (Primary)  
Strength: 4  
Dexterity: 5 *Favored  
Stamina: 4

Social (Tertiary)  
Charisma 4  
Manipulation 2  
Appearance 3

Mental (Secondary)  
Perception 3  
Intelligence 4  
Wits 5 *Favored

 **Abilities-Foci (Specialties):**  
Archery 0  
Athletics 4  
Awareness 3 (Being attacked while trying to sleep)  
Brawl 3 (Beaks)  
Bureaucracy 1  
Craft-Food 2 (Wyld materials)  
Dodge 5 *Favored  
Integrity 2  
Investigation 2 (My Cage)  
Larceny 1  
Linguistics 1  
Lore 2 (Existential Philosophy)  
Medicine 2 (Self-administered)  
Melee 2  
Occult 1  
Performance 1  
Presence 0  
Resistance 2  
Ride 0  
Sail 0  
Socialize 1  
Stealth 0  
Survival 2 *Favored  
Thrown 0  
War 0

 **Merits:**  
Fleet of Foot 4  
Heart’s Blood 3 (Everything that’s walked into her cage)  
Vibration Sense 2  
Mutation 3 (Thick Skin)  
Reputation 1 (Known Anathema)  
Languages 0 (Native: Riverspeak)

 **Flaws:**  
Derangement: Dual Personality (Defining) (The Beast)  
Mutation: Creature of Darkness (Defining)  
Mutation: Heart’s Blood Addiction (Major)

 **Essence and Willpower:**  
Essence 4  
Personal 19  
Peripheral 50 (50)  
Committed 0

Willpower: 7  
Permanent Limit: 7  
Limit Trigger: Witnessing bondage. Common Limit Break: Berserk Anger (3e Core page 136).

 **Other notes:**  
Echinna is written in the logs of the shikari as ‘the running bird’ and she earned it with her escape. On foot in any form she is extremely quick; in her Spirit Shape of an Austrech it took a pre-placed team of hunters to keep up with her. Unfortunately, that ability, so strongly written upon her destiny, allowed the Wyld Hunt to predict her response and landed her where she is today. Echinna’s Heart’s Blood library is small for a Lunar her age. She’s had centuries to expand it, but very limited territory to do so. With the boredom she typically battled in her early years, she never missed an opportunity to hunt what was within her reach, but now, with the Wyld’s help, that habit has hardened into an addiction. Should she ever break free she will have to fight her nature if she wants to stop herself from eating the heart of every new form she sees (Willpower roll at difficulty 3). Echinna’s thick skin mutation grants her an additional 2 natural soak. Her vibration sense allows her to feel rhythmic reverberations through the ground at an extremely heightened ability. She could estimate the size of an travelling party miles away, or she could feel rain dropping at a similar distance. Mostly, she uses it to notice the Wyld things of her cage trying to sneak up on her. Echinna was born, raised, and captured in the Riverlands, so she did not pursue any other language than her native Riverspeak. Finally, her Chimerism is so advanced it has blossomed into a dual personality and marked her as a Creature of Darkness.

 **Weapons:**  
Fists, Feet, and Fangs, Human Forms (Brawl, Withering) - 12 dice (13 if using her beak, up to +5 from Charms unstunted), 11 damage dice before strike successes, Overwhelming 1, Tags: Bashing, Brawl, Grappling, Natural  
Fists, Feet, and Fangs, Human Forms (Brawl, Decisive) - 8 dice (9 if using her beak, up to +5 from Charms unstunted)  
Crude Stone Knife (Brawl or Melee, Withering) - 12 dice (up to +5 from Charms unstunted), 11 damage dice before strike successes, Overwhelming 1, Tags: Bashing, Improvised  
Crude Stone Knife (Brawl or Melee, Decisive) - 8 dice (up to +5 from Charms unstunted)

 **Beast Combat:**  
Fists, Feet, and Fangs, Beast Form (Brawl, Withering) - 17 dice (up to +5 from Charms unstunted), 15 damage dice before strike successes, Overwhelming 3, Tags: Bashing, Brawl, Grappling, Natural  
Fists, Feet, and Fangs, Beast Form (Brawl, Decisive) - 13 dice (up to +5 from Charms unstunted)

 **Intimacies:**  
I cannot let the Beast free (Defining Principle)  
My Cage (Defining Tie, Hatred and familiarity)  
The Wyld (Major Tie, Cautious fear and curiosity)  
My Dragon-Blooded captors deserve to die, but not by the Beast (Major Principle)  
I love to run (Minor Principle)

 **Beast Intimacies:**  
I will break this cage (Defining Principle)  
I will eat the Dragon-Blooded who caged me (Defining Principle)  
I will drink of the Wyld (Major Principle)

 **Charms:**  
Wary Swallow Method, no cost, Permanent - Echinna suffers half the normal penalties to unexpected attacks (surprise at -1 instead of -2, ambush at half Defense round up instead of 0). Echinna’s movements are avian in their quickness and preciseness no matter what form she wears; this tendency functions as an additional tell.

Wasp Sting Blur, 2m, Dual, Instant - This Charm enhances the initiative gain from a successful withering attack by 1 (usually from 1 to 2). It also reduces the initiative penalty for a failed decisive attack by 1 to a minimum of 0 (usually from 2 to 1 or 3 to 2, see Exalted 3e page 191).

Meerkat Alertness Practice, Permanent - Once per scene, usually at the beginning of each battle scene, Echinna benefits from 1 full free Wits Excellency to a Join Battle roll.

Mongoose Spring Tactic, 8m, Reflexive, Instant - Once per scene, when Echinna enters Initiative Crash, she immediately exits Initiative Crash by resetting to base initiative (3) and rolling Join Battle, gaining successes as Initiative as normal. Her opponent gains the Initiative Break bonus as normal.

Tidal Wounds, Permanent, Knack (requires 2 Permanent Limit) - Echinna’s body is in transition to Chimerism, though this particular aspect of her descent into madness is easily hidden. While asleep, Echinna’s body will shift, without respecting what that shift might do to parts best left unshifted. The result could be healing or crippling or merely a moment of strangeness before shifting right back. Sleeping, as she ever does, in her cage with the Wyld, Echinna has not realized this as a permanent aspect of herself, blaming the Wyld for any discovered warping her body when she wakes. Once per month, Echinna must roll her Essence+Permanent Limit (11 dice). On a botch, she gains a crippling injury at the level of the number of 1’s that appear on the roll. On a failure, nothing happens. On a success, remove a crippling injury at a level equal to or less than the successes gained or gain that many health levels (of any penalty).

Blessing of Ignorance, 5m, Reflexive, Indefinite, Knack (requires 7 Permanent Limit) - When Echinna refuses to accept the monster she has become, she loses touch with reality. By saying out loud, “This isn’t me,” she retreats within her own mind, ceasing to experience her own senses, letting The Beast take over. The Beast controls her body while her consciousness records nothing. It even erases the episode that caused her to surrender control, so that she may experience the horror and revulsion with fresh eyes when she ‘returns’. Though, she need not return at all, if she does not wish to. When that happens, The Beast will be loose until it is cut down.

Excellencies: Echinna knows the Dexterity, Wits, and Intelligence Lunar Excellencies. She uses them whenever applicable, such as noticing the Wyld’s latest aggressive emanation, simply running in circles for the fun of it, or pondering the reason for existence.

 **Inventory:**  
Clothing of cloth, silk, and gossamer, scavenged in origin and unkept  
A crude stone knife

 **Health and Defense:**  
Health Levels: -0/-1x2/-2x2/-4x1/Incap.

Soak 6 (4 natural soak, 2 from thick skin), Hardness 0  
Parry: 4 (can parry lethal with her stone knife)  
Evasion: 5  
Rush: 10 dice  
Resolve: 4  
Guile: 2  
Disengage: 8 dice (10 for contesting)


	5. The Chimera

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Chimera's full character sheet.

Quote: _*Growling*._

 **Prelude:**  
You prowl along in the present, always searching for your next meal. Nothing matters to you besides feeding the constant hunger that you cannot sate. The past is lost to you except in the rare times that something you’ve eaten brings memories to the foreground of your dreams. You aren’t sure if the memories are yours, your meals’, or your previous incarnations’ any longer, and you do not care. The future is a foreign concept. There is only today, and only the hunt.

 **Roleplaying Hints:**  
The Chimera is strictly an non-player character. When the party confronts it, it will evaluate them as either predator or prey, then fight or flee as appropriate. During battle, it will target the weakest enemy (as determined by the highest wound penalty, then lowest health levels, then lowest Defense), like a hunting cat pounces on the sick, old, or the weak antelope. Before battle, it will track its prey with supernatural senses, stalking it with body-morphing camouflage, favoring ambush tactics (see Exalted 3e’s Stealth in Combat Complications starting on page 203).

 **Image:**  
The Chimera has devolved beyond a fixed form. Its multicolored skin crawls from the bones underneath that have no anchor one moment, then are fixed to the spine in the next, then the skin will ripple again as muscle cords itself around the new joint with killing power. It will sprout mouths at any stretch of its exterior, as if the entire inside is a digestive system. Similarly, it will excrete digested materials at random, spurting them in any direction from any orifice. Often, it takes traits from its latest meal - it might be the soft green of a leaf or the rough bark of a tree, it could be the fur or feathers of a beast, even the skin and likeness of a woman, or the cosmetic effects of an elemental. It always appears completely naked; clothes no longer fit into its very narrow worldview. 

**Mechanics:**  
Caste: Casteless  
Concept: A Wyld-twisted monstrosity  
Anima: Anima  
Tell and Totem: A constantly shifting form; Unknown  
Supernal Attribute: None

 **Attributes:**  
Physical (Primary)  
Strength: 10 *Favored  
Dexterity: 6  
Stamina: 9 *Favored

Social (Tertiary)  
Charisma 0  
Manipulation 4  
Appearance 0

Mental (Secondary)  
Perception 6  
Intelligence 0  
Wits 6

 **Abilities (Specialties):**  
Archery 0  
Athletics 9 (Chasing Prey)  
Awareness 8 (Prey)  
Brawl 10 (Grappling Prey, Biting Prey)  
Bureaucracy 0  
Craft 0  
Dodge 7  
Integrity 0  
Investigation 0  
Larceny 0  
Linguistics 0  
Lore 0  
Medicine 0  
Melee 0  
Occult 0  
Performance 0  
Presence 0  
Resistance 10 (Indigestion)  
Ride 0  
Sail 0  
Socialize 0  
Stealth 7 (The Wyld)  
Survival 9 *Favored  
Thrown 0  
War 5 (Eating entire armies)

 **Merits:**  
Heart’s Blood N/A (Anything it has ever eaten)

 **Flaws:**  
Chimera (Defining)

 **Essence and Willpower:**  
Essence 7  
Personal 22  
Peripheral 62 (62)  
Committed 0

Willpower: 0  
Permanent Limit: 10  
Limit Trigger: At a permanent Limit of 10, the Chimera no longer gains or loses Limit. The Chimera is in a constant state of unchanging Limit Break. Limit Break: Ravenous Hunger. The Chimera will search for prey in consuming, all-encompassing hunger. While this often means the Chimera will stalk and kill animals and people, it could just as easily mean the Chimera consumes an entire field of grains, gigantic trees, or even inedible rocks and dirt. Digestion is disgustingly quick, and the hunger is never sated while the Limit break is in force. Eating another sentient being brings partial control for a number of days equal to the meal’s permanent Essence. In partial limit break the Chimera can feel emotions other than hunger. The drive to eat is still the Chimera’s Defining Principle even in partial control, but under partial control it can gain a level of subtlety to its hunting that the full Limit Break does not allow.

 **Other notes:**  
The Chimera has no Solar Flaw. Its mind is usually too simple to understand things that are outside the categories of 'prey' and 'not prey'. Some Lunars who have studied the Solar Bond have conjectured that having a life as a Chimera frees you from Solar Bondship. But even those mostly convinced of the theory are not willing to test it, so the theory remains unverified. While the Chimera can wear the skin of beautiful people, animals, or even gods, there will always be some disfiguration, some asymmetry that unsettles the onlooker as much as looking at a very ugly person. Consequently, even in all its forms, it cannot raise its Appearance above 0. The Chimera will usually revise any designation of ‘prey’ if that prey deals it 20 health levels of damage or more. Then it will attempt to Withdraw (Exalted 3e page 199).

 **Weapons:**  
Fists, Feet, and Fangs, Chimera Form (Brawl, Withering) - 20 dice (up to +6 from Charms unstunted), 17 damage dice before strike successes, Overwhelming 1, Tags: Bashing, Brawl, Grappling, Natural  
Fists, Feet, and Fangs, Chimera Form (Brawl, Decisive) - 16 dice (up to +6 from Charms unstunted)

 **Intimacies:**  
Sate the hunger (Defining Principle)  
Survive (Defining Principle)  
Essence users taste best (Major Principle)

 **Charms:**  
The Chimera’s use of Essence has warped it into a predator without equal. It has sacrificed everything that might harken back to its abandoned humanity in this pursuit, as is reflected in many of its Attributes and Abilities breaking their Essence cap limits via unspecified Permanent Charms and becoming effectively mindless most of the time, unable to organize its own thoughts or produce an argument more sophisticated than ‘deceive the prey’. However, the Chimera does still command Essence, and will do so in the following ways:

Lunar Excellencies: The Chimera knows the Strength, Dexterity, and Stamina Lunar Excellencies. It will use the Dexterity and Strength Excellencies at their full strength whenever attacking prey or defending itself from a predator. It will use the Stamina Excellency on any attack that would deal over 10 post-soak damage prior to its use, again at full strength. Finally, when stalking prey in Stealth, it will use the Dexterity Excellency at full potency so long as that does not light up its Anima. The Chimera follows these rules to the letter, with no thought on saving 10 motes for Spore Regrowth.

When the Chimera has lost its final incapacitated health level to lethal damage that is not fire-based or aggravated, and it also has its Anima at iconic as well as 10 motes remaining, it will enter a comatose state that is the first stage of its Spore Regrowth Charm. This starts a regenerative process from the largest remaining chunk of the Chimera’s body. It does not need to begin at the moment of its death - the Chimera is crafty enough to wait until it is unobserved. Buds slowly sprout on its body at every point in need of restoration, gradually filling in the damaged flesh with new bone, sinew, and skin. This process could take as little as a week or as much as a month depending on how large the largest chunk happened to be. But even once the body is restored, the mind, such as it is, needs more care to retrieve. When Luna passes through all of her phases 7 times, its eyes fly open, and it begins to hunt again. This Charm is no true immortality. The Chimera is still vulnerable during this time of regrowth. If during any of this time while it is lethally incapacitated it takes any fire or aggravated damage, the regrowth process stops, it experiences a true death, and the Lunar Exaltation is released. 

**Inventory:**  
The Chimera bears no items and wears no clothing

 **Health and Defense:**  
Health Levels: -0/-1x2/-2x20/-4x40/Incap.

Soak 9 (9 natural soak), Hardness 0  
Parry: 8 (cannot parry lethal)  
Evasion: 7  
Rush: 15 dice (16 when chasing prey)  
Resolve: N/A - It is debatable that the Chimera is still even receptive to communication except via the memories of its prey  
Guile: 2  
Disengage: 13 dice (15 for contesting, 16 for contesting when chasing prey)


End file.
